NEW DELHI: India’s crude oil production fell 1.4% in December. According to statistics, crude oil production in December 2014 stood at 3.21 million tons, down 1.4% from 3.25 million tons in the same month last year. The National Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) reported a 5 percent surge in offshore production pushing output up 0.7 percent to 1.90 percent million tons. However, production from private fields declined by 5.2% to 1.02 million tons. Production from fields in Cairn Rajasthan declined by 7.8% to 765,049 tons, the report said. Gas production declined 3.5% to 2.89 billion cubic meters because of lower production from Reliance Industries’ East Offshore KG-private field. The decline continued in the D6 block. ONGC’s gas production declined by 5.1% to 1.89 bcm, while offshore gas production from private companies also declined by 4.5% to 64,186 mcm. In December, the country’s 22 refineries produced 19.72 million tons of petroleum products, up 6.1 pe...

Mumbai: Mahindra Automotive Giant (Mahindra) has announced that upgrading its new plant in Chakan, Pune will expand the production capacity of battery packs for electric vehicles as part of a strategy to scale up the production of electric vehicles in India and reduce costs. The production of electric vehicles is fundamentally dependent on the availability of batteries. While MM imports the batteries, the battery packs are assembled at its plant in Bangalore, India, which can produce 400 to 500 units per month. As part of its roadmap to increase battery pack assembly capacity, the auto giant will first double its capacity to around 10,000 vehicles, and then 50,000 battery packs per month will be produced at the rate of vehicles after the new plant comes on stream in two years. Pawan Goenka, Managing Director, Mahindra Mahindra At a meeting on the future direction of Mahindra Electric, I told the media, “We are taking a leap of faith as we expect demand to increase significantly i...

Electric vehicle charging stations will promote the use of electric vehicles. /p (This article was originally published on January 10, 2018.) HUBBALI: If you’re stuck on the road, can you charge your electric car on a pole? How about connecting your device to the Wi-Fi on the pole to browse internet hotspots for free? This is installed in Hubballi-Dharwad 250 smart poles at different locations will offer two additional services. The project will be carried out as a smart city project. S H Naregal, Special Director, Hubballi-Dharwad Smart City Limited (HDSCL), told The Times of India that the cost per poll is expected to be Rs 1 lakh. “Smart poles will be installed on major roads and important places like HDMC etc (Hubballi-Dharwad Municipal Corporation) office, Nrupatunga Betta Among other places more places will be identified for installation of smart poles. It will be carried out under Public-Private Partnership (PPP)-Build-Finance-Operate-Transfer (DBFOT),” he adde...